


i saw satan fall like lightning from heaven

by thelimitsofthe_sea



Category: Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelimitsofthe_sea/pseuds/thelimitsofthe_sea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But no matter how much you love somebody, they aren’t yours. For a second or forever, they aren’t yours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i saw satan fall like lightning from heaven

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Kill Your Darlings recently and it broke my heart. So here's some angsty over dramatic garbage I wrote at 11 at night. Bill's POV because I'm intrigued by how the "night in question" affected him, and I think he makes a good foil to the other characters.

He couldn’t even drink a goddamn cup of coffee in peace.  At the very was first bitter taste it was all back like  yesterday, and he standing in David’s flat, watching in detached amusement as Lucien and Allen downed back cup after cup of benzedrine spiked caffeine.

He had liked to think of himself as something more than a pampered, aging, professional good-for-nothing who spent his allowance on pharmaceuticals and then pushed them on newbies so that he could sit back and enjoy the show.

He was a guide, a mentor, leading the uninitiated in some ancient ritual, opening the doors for them to a higher consciousness. A liberator, helping them tosses off the shackles of convention, tradition, morality. A creator, even, taking an undeveloped nascent mind and giving birth to the extraordinary. _Let there be light._

Well, they’d all had their delusions.

He should have known better. He had known better, really.  Another pair of revolutionaries, armed to the teeth with ideals and empty, seething, beautiful words, ready to take on the world and win. They always thought they were the first, that was the funny thing. Every idealist in history thought they were the first to question, to be outraged, to dream and destroy and hope to god for something better than this. The truth was they’d all been there once, hell, even _he_ had for a while. They just knew when to give up, when to keep chugging along in the system, because although you can make a dent in the circle, you can never really break it.

But in that moment, as their faces flushed and they grabbed at each other in excitement, there had been something contagious in their fervour, their frenzy, their desire to feel and taste and see and live _._ And he had believed with them, no matter how temporarily, he had truly believed. So he let himself be drawn in, let himself feel passion and indignation and anger and hope.  Tearing, ripping, shredding up the ancient words, making way for the new, eager to rewrite history.

It had been set for disaster from the start. He remembered too clearly the day David had introduced him to Lucien, shaking and trembling and grinning in disbelief as if he was showing Bill the eighth wonder of the world. (And maybe he was in a way- all lanky limbs and tousled hair and a gaze that could cut through diamonds.) His first thought was, _this boy is going to break your heart,_ followed by _my lord, he’s so goddamn young._ And then Lucien had opened his mouth, and if Bill had thought even for a moment that he was just a pretty mindless face he was proven completely and eternally wrong.  The things he said were ridiculous, preposterous, absurd, and yet somehow he couldn’t stop listening.  He had glanced over at David watching Lucien speak, and that’s when he knew they were really in trouble.

And when it had all started going so horribly wrong, when Bill tried over and over again to talk David out of it, his friend had just looked at him helplessly and said _But I love him._ Like that made it alright. Like that fixed everything. If there was one thing David had taught him, it was that love, in its purest, most obsessive form was absolutely selfish, and absolutely terrifying. He had looked at him, and known in that moment that he was going to lose him, that perhaps he already had.

David had gotten what he wanted in the end. He’d lain in the arms of his fallen angel, looking up at the stars while he slowly sank into the cold deep.  He and Lucien were irrevocably linked; their names would be entwined together throughout history. What he couldn’t have in life he’d achieved in death. _Stupid stubborn bastard._

Allen had sent Bill a copy of his paper, and he’d read it, shaking his head, because although Ginsy had loved Lucien, he hadn’t understood him in the slightest. Allen had hated David, reviled him; he was the monster who  came to Lucien’s bedroom at night and snuck under the covers.   _Because David was in the same godforsaken line._  But in his death David had become some sort of romantic hero in Allen’s mind, a martyr to their mutual rejection. _Some things, once you’ve loved them , become yours forever,_ he’d written.

 

No.

 

That’s where they were wrong, where they were both wrong.  That had been David’s fatal error, thinking he had a claim on Lucien; like he was a kid in grade school and _hey, that’s mine, because I saw it first!_ Allen hadn’t understood it either. He had wanted to pin Lucien down, hold him accountable, make him define himself.  But no matter how much you love somebody, they aren’t yours. For a second or forever, they aren’t yours.

Maybe that’s why, in the end, Lucien had loved Jack the most. Because he hadn’t worshipped him as some sort of corrupted archangel, with a body formed by heaven but made for sinning. He hadn’t wanted anything from him, sexually or emotionally. He’d just accepted him as a human being, as the beautiful, wild, flawed phony he really was. There were no expectations or demands- just two fucked up dreamers trying to find their way in the world one drunken antic at a time.

 Jack had been pissed after the trial. _Fucking pervert deserved it. Why couldn’t he just leave the kid alone?_ According to him, Lucien didn’t deserve to be in prison simply for defending himself against an aging jilted lover who wouldn’t let him be.

And where did that leave Bill? Somewhere in the middle.  David had been his friend. And he’d had to watch as whatever twisted version of love he had for Lucien had driven him mad, had reduced him to a wretched, pathetic shameful shadow. No matter the reasons why, no matter the extenuating circumstances, the cold hard facts remained _. David was alive, Allen, until Lucien made him drown._ It was brutal and awful and shocking, and Bill would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

But he couldn’t bring himself to hate Lucien. He was a child, for Christ’s sake. A confused and scared little boy, who had taken refuge in whatever scraps of love had been offered to him, and then ran when it became too much to handle.  David had taken advantage of that vulnerability, of that unspoken but deep need; he had used it for himself. And used it over and over and over again. Was it any wonder that Lucien had turned on him in the end?

He drained the last few dregs from his cup, which was unlaced with any of the usual substances. Dad had bailed him out of jail; he had to play by his rules. The silly notions of rebellion he’d once had, silenced, chastened. Whatever had happened, it was over now. With a sickening and irreversible finality, it was over.

 

 _The libertine circle has come to an end._ _Go back to the beginning._


End file.
